Tag: historical

The Green Glass Sea by Ellen Klages: A-


From the back cover:
It is 1943, and while war consumes the United States and the world, eleven-year-old Dewey Kerrigan lives with her father in a town that—officially—doesn’t exist: Los Alamos, New Mexico. Famous scientists and mathematicians, including Dewey’s father, work around the clock on a secret project everyone there calls only “the gadget.” Meanwhile, Dewey works on her own mechanical projects, and locks horns with Suze Gordon, a budding artist who is as much of a misfit as she is. None of them—not J. Robert Oppenheimer, the director of the Manhattan Project; not the mathematicians and scientists; and least of all, Dewey and Suze—knows how much “the gadget” is about to change their lives…
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J’s Take on The Green Glass Sea by Ellen Klages

We all hit on the scheme of each suggesting a book that the other two had to read. My suggestion was The Green Glass Sea by Ellen Klages. Little did I realize they’d want me to write a review of it too!

In the end, I decided not to reread the book. Not that I don’t have an interest in rereading it at some point. But I have too many books on my plate at the moment. Including a way-overdue review of my Alan Turing book. (Wait, was that really due in May?! Oops!)

So I’ll tell you why I suggested The Green Glass Sea and how I came to read it in the first place.

I first attended Wiscon in 2008. Although I had been thinking about it for a couple of years before that, when I’d see con reports and panel descriptions on my Livejournal friendslist. I even voted on panel suggestions in.. I think it was 2007. Though I didn’t attend that year. (I was unemployed and dead broke that year! So I took 6 weeks and went to California instead. ;) )
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The Green Glass Sea (Ellen Klages)


The Plot
WW2 is raging and the Manhattan Project is well underway. A huge collection of scientists have been secreted at Los Alamos in the New Mexico desert. After her grandmother’s death, Dewey is able to finally rejoin her mathematician father while he works on ‘the gadget’. Though she gets along swimmingly with most of the other scientists, she has a harder time fitting in with the other girls her age who also live in the attached residences.
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Theodosia and the Serpents of Chaos by R. L. LaFevers: B-


From the back cover:
“Frankly, I’m not fond of surprises, as ones around here tend to be rather wicked.”

For poor Theodosia, however, surprises abound. She spends most of her time at the Museum of Legends and Antiquities in London. There, all the artifacts that her parents dig up around the world are put on display and studied. But what her parents can’t see—and what Theodosia can—is the curses and black magic still attached to the ancient pieces. And it’s up to Theo to keep it all under control. Quite a task for an eleven-year-old girl!

Then Theo’s mother brings home the Heart of Egypt—a legendary amulet belonging to an ancient tomb. Theodosia’s skills will certainly be put to the test, for the curse attached to it is so vile and so black, it threatens to bring down the entire British Empire! Theodosia will have to call upon everything she’s ever learned in order to prevent the rising chaos from destroying her country—and herself!
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J’s Take on Theodosia and the Serpents of Chaos

This book is the first in a series by R. L. LaFevers. It’s 1906, London, and Theodosia lives mostly in a museum that her father is a curator of. Her mother goes to Egypt often to hunt for archeological finds. Theodosia can sense all the curses on the stuff her mother brings back and other stuff in the museum. And she’s taught herself how to deal with the curses and remove them. Mostly. And she gets caught up in a web of secret conspirators and blah blah blah.

Interestingly, when I read that she was the daughter of the museum’s curator, I thought that meant her mother was curator. I’m not sure why I thought that, but I was definitely surprised when it turned out to be her father. I shouldn’t have been. I knew it was 1906.

This book pretty quickly lost my interest. Theodosia was sneaking around the museum and I didn’t care. It’s not that I don’t like her. I do rather like her. It was more interesting when she was interacting with people. Except even that didn’t help after a certain point.
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